Fashion may not make the world go round, but when a fashion story makes front-page news, it makes my personal planet spin a little faster.

Last week, the Star broke the story that international management giant IMG had bought Toronto’s World Master Card Fashion Week from the Fashion Design Council of Canada. While the details of the sale remain a mystery, the fact that it was a business writer who broke the news illustrates what’s at the crux of fashion today.

Beyond the struggling designers who try to reinvent the wheel each season, this is a world driven by the fortunes that can be made when all the manufacturing, retailing and marketing machinations are in sync.

Having travelled to assorted fashion weeks around the globe for almost three decades, and watched the slow and laborious growth of our own Toronto seasonal showcase, I was filled with mixed emotions when I heard the news. IMG had consulted for years with fashion week director and FDCC founder Robin Kay, who heads up the council with Joe Mimran, on how to best procure sponsorship for our shows.

On one hand, I was excited that such a revered powerhouse would actually want to own our week in October.

On the other hand, I was dismayed that we as Canadians couldn’t continue running our own ship.

Yes, IMG has a Canadian arm, but at the end of the day, it’s a global enterprise.

IMG’s international mandate is key to landing major sponsors. As the company behind fashion weeks in 30 disparate cities ranging from Berlin to Beijing, it aims to provide an eclectic experience by tailor-making each fashion week.

In a recent conversation with IMG’s senior vice-president Peter Levy, who heads up IMG Fashion worldwide, I was assured that every consideration will be given to the distinctive social flavour of our city, as IMG develops its strategy to bring us the best fashion week possible.

“We see ourselves as a facilitator and enabler of opportunity,” Levy said. “Our goal is to support and put talent on other people’s radar.”

That’s probably all any of us can hope for at this precarious time in the history of Canadian fashion — a wildly challenging time, when countless international designers are clamouring for attention, and most importantly, sales.

Kay, who has so tirelessly and passionately run Toronto Fashion Week for the past 13 years, knew that in order to help take our designers to the next level, in terms of international recognition, it was inevitable for a behemoth like IMG to take over the reigns.

While Kay did have her share of detractors (with some even circulating a petition demanding her resignation a few seasons back), she soldiered on for 26 seasons like a stoic warhorse.

Fact is, as a former Canadian designer herself, Kay knew the struggles our designers face. Always adamant about uncovering and supporting talent, her sometimes unorthodox behaviour got her into hot water. But we who know her intimately also know her heart was always in the right place. She wanted to get us excited about fashion and support our homegrown talent. She certainly succeeded in helping to excite us. And while all the local and national media our Toronto Fashion Week garnered did help support our Canadian talent, I often wonder how much it did — could ever do, really — to entice us to buy into our own.

In a world where H&M and Topshop and Zara have become such go-to brands, can Canadian labels, other than the monster-marketer that is Joe Fresh, ever realistically compete? And with more and more American retailers entering the Canadian fray, do our humble homegrown designers realistically stand a chance?

“I don’t think the talent pool here is big enough to even garner a big machine (like IMG),” said designer Joyce Gunhouse, who, with her partner Judy Cornish, founded the Comrags label back in the 1980s.

Gunhouse and Cornish have religiously presented one collection a year at Toronto Fashion Week since the beginning, but Gunhouse points out that most designers come and go. They simply can’t sustain a business in this country.

“The average person is excited about fashion,” said Gunhouse. “But is that really creating more business (for designers)?” Gunhouse believes that change is good, but said she and Cornish are indifferent about the IMG takeover. She believes that designers will inevitably bring audiences with them, no matter where and how they show.

Personally, I’ve always believed that one of Canadian fashion’s biggest problems was the lack of international media attention — a kind of global awareness of the level of product we had to offer.

IMG’s Peter Levy is promising that as his organization helps to develop and expose talent in this country, we will eventually give the world something to buzz about. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’m urging everyone, as I have for years, to take a good look in their closets and count their Canadian labels.

If you don’t have a healthy handful, start shopping for them. If we don’t support our own talent here at home, how can we ever expect to sail in international waters?

IMG has given us its vote of confidence. Now we just have to rise to the occasion. And dress for it.

Jeanne Beker is a contributing editor to the Star and host of Fashion Television Channel. Email jeanne@ctv.ca, follow on Twitter @jeanne_beker and watch her on CTV, E! and FashionTelevisionChannel.

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